Mustaine the Conspiracy Theorist

The Norwegian journalist who Mustaine is all pissed off at has posted all 25 minutes of their interview online and I’d like you to watch the first few minutes of it, up to the part where he starts talking about Metallica. Pay close attention to what he’s saying about 9/11 being an inside job and all that. I know already I’m going to take a shit-ton of heat for this post, but I gotta say it.

OK, I took a lot of heat when I wrote my Megadeth Endgame review for calling out Dave Mustaine on his ridiculous lyrics, despite holding out that, indeed, the record was very, very good. There were a lot of people who defended him in different ways, saying that Dave Mustaine has always been writing about this kind of stuff and so forth. They particularly gave me shit for saying that Mustaine had gone of the deep end on the right side of the political spectrum. Well, I would like to correct people who fought against me on this point. For those who aren’t aware, Mustaine got pissed off at a journalist recently for basically turning a 25 minute interview into a 5 minute clip about Dave’s gripes about the whole Metallica fiasco. You know, the whole “I got kicked out of the band for assaulting my bandmate ’cause he kicked my dog” story. Some of us (myself included) absolutely don’t give a shit. Who. Fucking. Cares. Right? I mean, dude hasn’t been in Metallica since… Well, as far as the majority of fans are concerned, ever. He wasn’t even on Kill ‘Em All and the majority of fans don’t have anything older than that anyway. So who cares!

So the whole interview of Dave Mustaine v. Norwegian Journalist was released, and I decided to watch it since I do a metal blog. You know, what’s El Crazy Mustaine up to these days? See, here’s thing thing. I can’t interview the guy myself because Roadrunner has decided that my blog (despite the fact that it is now getting thousands of views a week and outshining itself all the time) isn’t good enough to get onto their promo list and therefore I can’t interview Mustaine myself. This is a big access game and unfortunately, I don’t have that access. So, as much as I’d like to interview this guy and actually delve into his political beliefs, I won’t be allowed to. It’s a big game of access and apparently AngryMetalGuy.com isn’t cool enough for the Roadrunner folks. Which is too bad, since it sounds like Mustaine really, really wants to talk about this shit. But rant aside, that means that I’m just going to have to spout back what I heard here, and this is great.

First, to prove my point. Dave starts talking about “the endgame document” and 9/11 conspiracies on the Internet. Making use of a common logical fallacy, he says “Alex Jones … puts forward really hard theories to rebutt.” OK, two things: first, just because you can’t disprove something doesn’t mean that it’s a fact. By Mustaine’s logic, the whole piece from this video where he’s talking about his former drummer thinking that Jesus was an alien should totally work. Now this idea is patently absurd to Dave, but he’s using the exact same logic to reach his own conclusions. I can’t disprove that God exists, but does that mean that God exists? Not really. It just means I can’t disprove it, for a variety of reasons. But I also can’t disprove that Jesus wasn’t an alien, does that mean that Jesus was an alien? Well, it must! I can’t disprove it! Secondly, “Alex Jones,” I thought to myself, “why do I know Alex Jones?” Well, Alex Jones runs PrisonPlanet.com and InfoWars.com, both are highly commercial endeavors that also allow him to pedal his conspiratorial wares. If you’ve ever done any research on the great American conspiracy theories, such as about the Bilderberg Group, you’ll know who he is. Here’s what a cursory investigation (i.e., reading his Wikipedia page) turns up on Alex Jones:

Alex Jones (born Alexander Emerich Jones, February 11, 1974) is a right-wing,[1][2][3] conservative[4][5][6][7] American talk radio host and filmmaker. Jones, however, views himself as a libertarian, not a right-winger,[8] and calls himself a paleoconservative.[9] In a promotional biography he is described as an “aggressive constitutionalist.”[10][11] His syndicated news/talk show The Alex Jones Show, based out of Austin, Texas, airs via the Genesis Communication Network over 60 AM, FM, and shortwave radio stations across the United States and on the Internet.[12] His websites include Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com.[13]

A right-wing conservative dude who spends a lot of time pushing out ideas about the Amero and things of that sort. He basically believes that we don’t have a valid government and that our government, and well, actually the coming WORLD GOVERNMENT is going to insert chips into each and every one of us, and control us with our money. Sound familiar? Yeah, it’s an end of days kind of conspiratorial orgy that roots back to conservative Christian concepts of the Number of the Beast being a barcode and number that we’re all going to have and so on and so forth.

As for the Endgame document that “mysteriously disappeared,” according to Mr. Mustaine, it took me about 3 minutes to “find” it again (I’m sure he’ll be happy to know). It didn’t actually disappear, it’s available through Wikipedia and through the ALCU’s website (http://www.aclum.org/ice/documents/endgame.pdf) and it is listed by the ALCU as a concern in regards to immigrants. In fact, the Orwellianally named Operation Endgame (which is a terribly scary name, one must admit), is not at all about rounding up American citizens and putting them in camps, it is in fact about rounding up immigrants and kicking their asses out of the United States. Now whether or not you think that this is a fascist policy it a) doesn’t appear to actually be happening, b) doesn’t actually relate to American citizens and c) doesn’t support that we’re all going to be fitted with RFID chips and told to suck the government line. Nor does it seem that everyone is going to be ordered to report to camps any time soon, either, despite the scare tactics of certain organizations.

Mustaine then goes on to cite the movie Zeitgeist which has captured the imaginations of many young people with Internet access in the States, but is probably the most ridiculously poorly reasoned and thought out films ever made. The sourcing is terrible. They use pretty much no one of consequence or with any standing anywhere in the film, they combine three completely different trains of thought and try to tie them together into a whole and they push that simultaneously as the government is trying to control you monetarily through the Federal Reserve, the bankers are trying to set up a One World Government or New World Order which is going to enslave everyone in the world. At the same time that this is happening, other groups are working together to work out a never-ending War on Terror which can be used to scale back on civil liberties (an actual concern for any civil rights-minded individual like myself), but in doing that, they’re just working towards sending people to camps for some unknown reason (because really, there’s no good reason given here, every crime and ill-deed has a motivation, what’s the motivation here?)1

There is, of course, inherent populist appeal in the discussions of money, the Federal Reserve and not allowing the government to control us with money, I admit. And these things have long been a part of the American collective unconscious, so to speak. The Green Backers, for example, were deeply afraid of bankers2 and were highly populistic. And, as mentioned before, The John Birch Society, one time a mainstay in right wing circles in the US, were ostracized by the conservative movement because they were pushing this concept of elite conspiracies against the masses, something that appeals to the common working man who feels like he’s getting screwed by a system but doesn’t know where to put the blame. But the problem is that these things are unprovable and sometimes just patently false. Instead, Alex Jones and other conservatives of this nature, rely on dubious evidence and hearsay to show that we’re headed for DOOM. There are, of course, many endgames in this for a guy like Jones.. but the most obvious of them would be money.

The point here is that what Dave Mustaine is saying is crazy and he totally gets a pass for it. Not only that, but it’s absolutely tied to a right wing tradition of conspiratorial views and attitudes, that spawned the militia movement in the 90s and included individuals like Timothy McVeigh, who bombed the Oklahoma City building. Just because it is now being picked up by left wing social libertarians doesn’t mean that it’s not still founded in right wing, conservative Christian dogma about the end of days and the Antichrist and all that kind of stuff. It is also a very smart way to undermine the legitimacy of a President, as well. If you can convince people that the President isn’t really a representative of the people, than it’s not so difficult to convince them that it revolt is the right thing to do. Of course, I’m not saying that Dave Mustaine himself is interested in destabilizing a government or anything like that. No, I just think that Mr. Mustaine wants to believe. But that he’s so brazen about it in interviews and stuff just really amazes me.

On a personal aside, the only motivation that I can come up with, total control and unending access to resources, implies to me that those in charge would much rather have a society of selfishly motivated individuals who are willing to spend themselves into debt and live indebted to companies, thereby increasing their profits forever, i.e., the system we already have. It would seem to me that this is a system that would give these people a lot more control than shipping off Americans to camps, where they do not spend any money, consume products or do anything that a good American citizen “should” be doing, in order to keep the American economy strong and prosperous. ↩

Which is also quite anti-Semitic if you think about it, since they are often referred to as “moneylenders” borrowing the Biblical name which associates them with Jews and all of those negative connotations. ↩

I’m on my phone right now so I can’t type up a full response to the points raised (and bravo for not Lowering yourself to insulting people and addressing points), I raise this question though, has it occurred to you that globalist bankers etc have al the money they need and are in fact after control of life, rather than people spending worthless money based on the promise of repaying more money with nothing to back it up. Money is not wealth. Control and influence are much more valuable, I’ll give this a proper response when I’m on my laptop, peace.

Ha! Nice, someone actually read this. It’s funny, I have long since moved beyond writing about my personal opinions (otherwise Jon Schaeffer would’ve really taken it from me recently), particularly in reference to politics, but this post is really great! Haven’t read it since I wrote it, more than likely.

Yes, it has occurred to me: and then I wrote it off as being far too conspiratorial. For what purpose would they want that ‘control of life’? What’s the motivation? Are they just mad scientists in their towers thinking about ways to control the population? Max Weber once wrote that capitalism was a steel shell (translated into English as iron cage by Talcott Parsons, but that’s not really what he wrote). The idea is basically that once you’re in the system you cannot escape it. People are already so embedded in the system that bankers in essence have unregulated leeway to do whatever the fuck they want. See the financial crisis for proof of that. There is basically no functional way to live outside the system. So, why?

But then, too, what is the solution to this? These conspiracy theorists want to tie money back to a gold standard which would do exactly… what? It would basically choke the modern economy to death. Cat? Out of the bag. Toothpaste? Ain’t goin’ back in the bottle. It would seem to me that regulation of the system is a far more reasonable way to deal with it, but instead you basically end up debating Austrian school economics once you make it past the “bankers are bad” bit.

I agree with everything that you have said (albeit, a long time ago).Â It is particularly hard for me to hear this stuff coming from Mustaine, because I have been a huge Megadeth fan since I was young. However, I think there always has been an element of this insanity in his lyrics (e.g., New World Order was recorded in the early 90’s, but unreleased).

Anyway, perhaps you should be fortunate that so few people saw this post.Â It’s very well written, but going up against conspiracy theorist is a daunting task.Â They have basically every irrational, illogical argument imaginable. Plus, they can always fall back on comments like “Oh, I am just using my imagination”, or some other method to make distance. You hit the nail on the head when you said ol’ Davey “wants to believe”.Â I think a lot of people ‘want’ to believe things that they are either too lazy or too uninformed to look into.

Excellent stuff. Mustaine’s been off the deep end for a while. I’m a lifelong ‘Deth fan and I love their music, but I think it’s safe to say he’s given up one addiction (self destruction) and found another – God. It’s not uncommon.Â

Everything is OK America…. The Government never lies. Bush didn’t rig the election… Bliar has no blood on his hands… Go back to sleep… Ignore the evidence.. The bankers aren’t fucking us over…. Hijackers who found it difficult to fly light aircraft really did fly a Jumbo jet into a building….. Ignore evidence like the Neo-Cons “project for the new american century” which called for a “New Pearl harbour” event as justification for killing lots of brown people for oil….